Night of the Living Undead
by kassinova
Summary: After the sudden, mysterious disappearance of their Altean princess from the castle corridor, the Voltron Paladins find themselves in a vicious struggle between themselves and a supernatural force that threatens their team at the very core. Their main objective? Stay alive. (Author note: this fic DOES contain klance, just so there are no ship surprises.)
1. Chapter 1: The First to Rise

"You can't be serious."

The flat-screen television mounted on the wall behind Lance crackled silently, TV-snow flurrying across the screen like millions of tiny little black bugs scurrying across a white floor. Pidge was slumped on across the couch, her arms hanging over the back of it as she kicked her feet up and down absentmindedly. Hunk leaned his weight on the back of the couch beside her, his arms folded loosely across his abdomen. Allura was silently studying the pictures on the DVD case in Lance's hand from her perch on the couch's arm, Shiro standing close beside her with his weight on one leg.

I scowled at Lance as I made my way into the den area from the little kitchenette where the popcorn had been popping over an eye on the stove. Not _this_ crap again. Lance had the worst taste in movies.

Lance gave all five of us pajama-clad Paladins his signature crap-eating grin and shook the plastic DVD case back and forth in his left hand. "Serious as a heart attack, Keithy-boy," he replied smugly, flashing me a cocky, rage-inducing wink. "Why, babe? You scared?"

I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled. "Me? Scared? Of _that?"_ I nodded my head at the case clutched in his fingertips and gave him a poisonous look. "In your dreams. _The Night of the Living Undead_ is one of the lamest horror movies to ever hit the box office in _history_ , right next to the 2013 version of _Carrie._ Even the _name_ is lame, Lancelot."

"I dunno, man," Hunk began, eyeing the case warily. He cracked his fingers one-by-one inattentively, a quirk he had when he was anxious about something. "I don't—I really—I don't think I wanna watch that. It looks like it'd scare the ever-living heck out of me. _Carrie_ scared the ever-living heck out of me."

" _Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire_ scared the ever-living heck out of you, Hunk," Lance reminded him flatly, waving the case around carelessly.

Hunk gave him a sheepish look and shrugged his shoulders. "The vampires were creepy."

"Eh, it's all just fiction," Pidge put in nonchalantly, adjusting her glasses and rolling her hazel-brown eyes. "There's no such thing as ghosts, anyway. I say let's watch it. It's better than the other bullcrap Lance tries to make us watch when it's his turn to pick a movie."

Lance nodded his head and held out his hands, almost as if to say, _Yeah, duh. It's_ _way_ _better than the other bullcrap._

"Well, she's not wrong," Shiro added in response to Pidge. "It _has_ to be better than that lame romantic comedy that he picked for us to watch a few weeks ago."

"Ex _cuse_ _you?!"_ Lance interjected in offense. " _Two Lovers on Lovebird Street_ is one of the best romantic comedies of all time!"

"It was a _Lifetime movie_ ," I deadpanned, "It _sucked_."

" _You_ suck!" he shouted back at me.

I raised an eyebrow, nonplussed. "Yeah? Well, you swallow. _And you like it_."

He opened his mouth to rattle off another comeback, his cheeks turning that deep crimson red like they do when he gets angry. "Yeah?! Well _you_ definitely weren't complaining _last night_ when—"

"Guys, _guys,_ " Shiro interrupted, waving a panicked hand, his eyes wide. " _Enough. Tee-em-eye._ That's enough, okay? It's Lance's week to pick the movie. So far, we have two 'yays' and two 'nays'. Allura, you're the only one who hasn't voted yet. What do you say?"

Allura had remained mostly silent for the entirety of our squadron's little spat, listening to both sides of the argument. Now, she glanced between us in a decisive manner, her eyes narrowing a little in consideration. "Well, to be honest," she began, smoothing a rogue wrinkle in her pale-pink nightgown, "I've never seen a horror movie, nor do I really know what a 'living undead' is—the two words themselves are completely identical, so I don't much understand the _point_ that the title has to make... But at the same time, as one who believes that there are still some spirits that wander the world of the living, I'm opposed to the idea of a movie that might, as Hunk said, 'scare the ever-living heck' out of me or anyone else."

I saw Lance's shoulders slump in defeat, and my chest puffed out in triumph. He shot me a glare, to which I responded with a grin and a shrug of my shoulders. Hunk looked relieved.

" _But."_

Lance's eyes turned back up at her, a glimmer of hope swimming in their depths.

 _No. No, no, no,_ I willed her. _Please, please,_ _ **please**_ _don't make us watch this dumb movie._

She either didn't hear my silent willing, or she refused to listen to it. "I'm curious to see what kind of scare a cinema _really_ could invoke in me," she finished, a smile widening across her coffee-colored face. "Let's do it!"

" _Ye-heh-heeesss!"_ Lance shouted, pumping his fist in the air and giving Pidge an enthusiastic high-five before skipping to the DVD player and popping the movie in. Pidge vaulted over the back of the couch and shot into the kitchen to retrieve the now-sizzling popcorn from the stovetop.

Hunk and I exchanged an apathetic glance. "Aw, _quiznak_ ," he mumbled under his breath, shuffling dejectedly to the orangey-yellow beanbag next to Pidge's green one and flopping down on it. He took his large brown teddy-bear in one arm and shoved his face into its fluff. "Fine. Let's just get this over with."

Pidge bounded back into the den with two monstrous bowls of popcorn, slinging one onto the side-table next to Lance and me and keeping the other in her lap as she cannonballed into her beanbag chair. Miraculously, none of the popcorn spilled from the bowl. I chuckled as she shoved a hearty fistful of it into her mouth and turned to Hunk. "You want some? Might make you feel better."

Except, it came out more like: " _oo wanffum? Ma make oo feel be-uhh."_

Hunk glowered at her. "No, thanks. I don't want any of your traitor popcorn. You helped get me into this."

Pidge responded with a maniacal giggle.

Lance had already beat me to our spot on the couch and had sunk into the corner, patting the seat right in the crook of his arm and wiggling his eyebrows at me vigorously. "Don't worry, baby," he muttered teasingly as I curled under his arm, "I won't let the big bad ghosts get you. If you get scared, you can just hold on to me. _I'll_ protect you."

"I'm not _scared_ ," I growled back at him as I threw a blanket over our legs and snuggled deeper into his side. The buttery scent of the popcorn wafted to me as the blanket stirred the air, causing my stomach to grumble audibly. I ignored it and resisted the urge to grab it and wolf it down as quickly as possible. I was still trying to be angry at Lance. I would not let my hunger overcome my cause. "Nor _will_ I be scared. This is just a stupid movie, with a stupid, unoriginal plot, stupid, talentless actors, and stupid, expressionless dialogue."

"Mmhmm. That's what you said about _Saying Goodbye to Molly_ and you cried in the end. And, by the way, this one has Bella Thorne in it. So _there._ "

"I was crying with relief because it was finally over," I shot back at him with a playful smirk. "And Bella Thorne being in it only proves my point. 'Talentless actors'. Or did your goldfish-brain forget that already?"

He scowled in reply, sticking his tongue out at me. "Killjoy. At least she's hotter than _you._ "

I snickered. "Keep telling yourself that, McClain. I'm the best you'll ever get."

Shiro and Allura had taken up a cozy little position on the opposite end of the couch, barricaded snugly underneath a huge, fluffy blanket and two large downy pillows. "Are you sure you don't wanna join in with us, Coran?" Shiro asked the ginger-headed Altean over his shoulder, squeezing Allura's body close to his with one arm and reaching down into Pidge's popcorn bowl with the other. "There's room for one more over here between Keith and Allura."

"No thank you," Coran responded kindly as he swabbed up the last of the crumb-sprinkled counter with a rag and tossed it into the laundry bin beneath the cabinet. "Movies aren't really my thing. They turn your mind to mush." He tapped his temple with his index finger. "Make you think things. Straaaange things."

"Oh, come on, Coran!" Allura urged with a huge, beaming smile, throwing her platinum ponytail over her shoulder and accidentally slapping her hair into Shiro's face. (He blew it out of his mouth, wriggling his nose.) "It'll be fun!"

"Nah. I think I'm good."

"I think he's just a _chicken_ ," Lance called, making obnoxious clucking noises with his tongue and swinging his arms wide with a chicken-wing-flapping motion. He almost knocked me in the head with his elbow, and I shoved my own into his ribcage, annoyed. His breath flooded suddenly between his teeth with the force of the blow, and he shot me an innocently quizzical look. "What? I think he's just not man enough to take it!"

"What was that? 'Not man enough'? You better watch yourself," Coran chided, raised both of his eyebrows in astonishment as he let out a light chuckle. "I'm more of a man than you'll ever dream to be, _boy."_

" _Ooooooooh,"_ Pidge and Hunk crowed behind their hands.

Lance rolled his eyes and took a bowl of popcorn from the end table, but didn't try to muster up a comeback. I hid my snigger behind my palm.

"What are _you_ laughing at?" he asked me irritably as the opening credits fade on and off the screen ominously.

"Nothing, nothing," I replied, scrambling (and failing) to suppress my chuckles. I caught the slightly-hurt expression on his face, choked my laughter back down my throat, and added, "but, just so you know, you're more than man enough for me."

That brought him back from his silent little tantrum. The first flickers of a smirk flashed across his lips. I pressed against them with my own and giggled as he squeezed my body closer to his.

"Hey, you two," Shiro stage-whispered, forcefully whacking Lance's elbow with a pillow and causing him to break away from me in surprise, "Enough sucking faces and watch the movie. You can do all that kissy stuff later— _away_ from us, when you're _alone_."

Lance and I snickered again as I buried my head deeper into his chest, the mild, ever-lingering and ever-intoxicating scent of his cologne enveloping me, our attention slowly sinking into the movie on the screen before us.

…

"Uh…. Keith? Babe?"

I hadn't taken my eyes from the screen for the entire two hours, even as the double-columned ending credits began to roll lazily across the screen. "Mmhmm? What is it?"

"You're, uh… You're killing my hand. My hand is numb. I can't feel it. Please…" Lance's hand squirmed uncomfortably against my own. "You gotta chill, man. That hurts."

I blinked, coming out of the trance in which the television had enthralled me in, and glanced down at where my fingers had wrapped intensely around his. I noticed the little red indentions that my fingernails had made on the back of his hand and loosened my hold on him. I hadn't realized I'd been gripping onto him so tightly. "Oh. My bad."

He snickered and shook his hand out, giving me that devilish, crap-eating grin again. "Not scared, my ass."

Needless to say, I flipped him the bird.

Shiro had been covering his eyes awkwardly with his free hand at the end of the movie. A glance in his general direction showed that he was now staring in a sickened kind of awe at Allura, who was eyeing the screen with the same kind of animated, enthusiastic amusement as a six-year-old kid who just watched Mickey Mouse and his gang saunter down the sidewalk at Disney World.

"Can we watch this one again sometime?" she asked Shiro as she stood to her feet, her crystal-blue eyes wide and pleading as she gazed innocently at her horrified boyfriend.

Shiro's expression evolved to one similar to a small, elderly Christian grandmother who just learned what "Netflix and chill" meant. He shook his head slowly. "Uhh… no."

"Hunk." Pidge nudged the mountainous lump of blankets with an R2-D2-slippered foot, sipping her carton of apple juice heartily through a straw. Her gargantuan bowl of popcorn now only contained a couple of un-popped kernels and a few grains of salt. "Hey. Hunker-ino. The movie's over."

"I don't care," came his muffled reply from beneath the blanket. "I'm not coming out. Can we watch _Dora_ or something? Something without creepy zombie clowns and murderous ghost people? I really, really hate you guys right now." His large brown eyes suddenly peeped through the only hole in the blanket, flickering back in forth between the five of us. "Like, really. I'm serious. I hate all of you. Especially Lance. I really, _really_ hate Lance. But not Keith, no. He's the only _sensible_ one."

I couldn't help but chuckle at that.

"Well," Shiro grunted as he stood up and stretched, "it was nice spending time with you guys, but I think it's time for me to head on to bed. It's getting late."

Lance groaned as I stood to my feet and began unraveling him from the blanket that we had both become entangled in. "Blahhh. It's only 10:30. You sound like an old man."

Shiro shot him an apprehensive look.

"Yeahh, I have some programming to do on a new drone I've been building," Pidge informed us, grabbing her pillow and blanket in one hand and tossing her bean-bag chair carelessly in the corner with the other hand. "I was gonna get Hunk to come with me and help, but I guess he's gonna be staying here alone for the rest of the night."

Hunk's head instantaneously snapped upright at her last remark. "Alone? No, no. No, no, no, no. I'm coming with you. Give me just a second…." And, with that, he rolled off of his bean-bag and began to clean up his—and Pidge's—mess with rapid, uncharacteristically-Hunk-like speed.

"Come on, lazy-bones," I told Lance, smacking him in the face with the blanket. "Let's go find something to do."

He leapt out of his slouched seat and wrapped his arm around my waist as I began wadding it up in a ball and stuffing it carelessly beneath my arm. "Oooh! I think _I_ know something that we can do—"

Pidge grimaced comically, wrinkling her nose and poking the tip of her tongue between her teeth. "Jesus, Lance. Literally none of us want to know what you two are gonna do after you get back to your room."

Lance shot our fellow Paladin a disgusted look. "Oh my _god._ I was gonna say that we could go play Super Mario on the '64. Get your mind out of the gutter, Pidgeon."

This time, _she_ was the one who flipped Lance the bird.

"Yeah, well, next week is _my_ week to pick the movie for movie night," Hunk began, "and we're watching some _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_ or _SpongeBob SquarePants_ or something _normal_. I ain't putting up with this anymore. The next time it's Lance's turn to pick the movie, I'm going to my room to sit by myself and contemplate the reasoning as to why God had to put me _smack in the middle_ of _outer-frickin'-space_ with you sadistic little _tyrants_ _._ " He glanced at me, his expression softening slightly. "Minus Keith. Keith is still cool."

I gave him a single thumbs-up. "You, too, pal."

Just as we all began to turn and go our separate ways, the Castle's electricity flickered and blinked, buzzing and screeching with a horrible, deafening racket that forced us to clap our hands over our ears in pain. After a few more moments of complete agony (and epilepsy-triggering strobe lights), the Castle's power completely shut off, leaving us in total darkness. I heard Hunk let out a scream, along with a few crashing noises that sounded like the end-table toppling over and a half-empty popcorn bowl being dumped on the floor. I grimaced. I was sure I'd be the one to clean that up later.

" _It's just like in_ _ **Night of the Living Undead**_ _!"_ Hunk gasped loudly, his voice rising steadily in panic. " _Right before they all went to bed, the lights went off, and that's when the bad guy started picking them off one by one!"_

"Dear _Jesus!"_ Pidge yelled over his incessant screaming. "Will you chill out with all that yelling? You're _fine,_ Hunk! This castle is _twelve-thousand_ years old, you _know_ that the power goes on the fritz sometimes!"

"Everyone, just _stay calm,"_ Allura ordered sternly. "The backup generators should be on momentarily. Then, we can go down to the control room and get this sorted out."

"Just stay where you are, guys," Shiro re-iterated calmly.

For once, we actually did what we were told.

A few moments later, the back-up power triggered by the generators saturated the room and hallways with an eerie, crimson-red light that made the walls seem slathered with blood. I looked up at Lance, who still stood pressed tightly against me, his arm still around my waist and his dark blue eyes widening with fear. I snickered and quickly hid my mouth behind my hand.

"Wh-wh-what are _you_ laughing at, Mullet?" he stuttered, his voice cracking slightly. His voice was thick with annoyance.

I couldn't control myself. I was still snorting with laughter. " _'Not scared,_ _ **my**_ _ass!_ '" I quoted back at him, mimicking him perfectly. I heard Shiro and Pidge chuckle lightly.

"Shut _up_ ," Lance muttered, glaring at me with contempt. "It's not funny, Keith."

"Ohhh, yeah it is," I teased. I tried to take his face in my hands, but he swatted my hands away, scowling profusely at me. My laughter continued still. "The almighty Lance Charles Julio Esteban McClain is _scared._ "

"Yeah? Well, I'm kinda scared, too, and I don't like this one bit," Hunk said quickly in defense of his friend, peeking out from behind Pidge's shoulder. It was pretty amusing, seeing a twenty-one-year-old, two-hundred-fifty-pound man hiding behind a seventeen-year-old girl no bigger than a beanpole. " _Screw_ this. _Screw. This_. I don't like this. Not one bit."

Lance was loosening up a little more, now. I could feel the muscles in his shoulder-blades relax as he turned his head toward his best friend and began to speak. "Don't be scared, man," he said sympathetically. Suddenly, as quickly as the power had gone out, a big, mischievous grin flashed across his face. "The big scaredy-cat guys are _always_ the ones who survive the horror movies."

" _That isn't helping, Lance_."

He shrugged, his normal behavior slowly creeping back into its old ways.

Thank God. He had been acting like a total wimp, and it was getting _really_ annoying.

"So," Allura began after a short silence, tapping a manicured index-fingernail against her bottom lip, "who would die first in a horror movie?"

"Well, normally the bravest one with the best morals and the most integrity goes first," Lance replied nonchalantly. "That's normally the leader. So, since Shiro is our leader, then Shiro would be the first to die. Most definitely."

"No doubt," Pidge added. I nodded in agreement.

"Well, that sucks," Shiro said, scratching the back of his head. "I would've thought that Lance would've been taken out before me. Usually, it's the annoying, obnoxious ones that disappear first."

Lance was beside himself. "Uh, bull- _shit!_ _I'm the handsome, fun-loving one._ That one normally goes next to last. And, _Keith_ is the obnoxious one, so they'd take _him_ first. _Not_ me."

I glared at him and smacked him in the back of his head with my palm.

"I _mean_ ," he began again, giving me an embarrassed look, "They would _try_ to take you first. But I wouldn't let them. Because I love you, and I'd fight 'em off for you. Like, I'd _fight_ them. To the _death_."

Shiro laughed, clearly enjoying the reaction that his jab invoked in his fellow Paladin. "Good save, Lance."

"Yeah," I grumbled, still frowning at my lover. " _Good save._ You can sleep in your own bed tonight."

He whined pathetically, hurt. "Aww, but _baaaaabe—"_

"Uh-uh. _Can_ it. We'll discuss this later."

Allura giggled, amused at the scene that had folded out before her. "Okay, so Shiro is first. Who's next?"

Hunk, Shiro, Lance and I all practically shouted the name in unison:

"Pidge."

Pidge gave all four of us an incredulous look, genuinely shocked at our immediate response. "What the hell, guys?!"

"You're too smart," Hunk said. "And you don't believe in ghosts. Plus, you're the only truly rational member of the team. It's too obvious. They'd target you next because you're too much of a valuable asset to us."

Lance considered this for a moment, then nodded in approval. "Yeah… Yeah, that basically sums it up. You're dead, Pidgeon."

"Oh, _go screw yourself,_ McClain _._ "

"Nah, fam, that's Keith's job."

I punched him in the arm as hard as I could, causing him to stagger sideways and yelp in pain.

"What?! What do you want me to do, lie?! This is domestic abuse!"

" _NO,"_ I seethed at him, "Jesus _Christ,_ Lance!"

He made no apology and gave me that signature Lance McClain grin instead, wiggling those stupid eyebrows. God, I wanted to slam my fist into his dumb, smug face. Instead, I told him something that would wipe that obnoxious little expression off of his face:

"You would be next."

The Cuban paladin's eyes grew huge, anger flickering in their depths. "What?! WHAT?! NO way, Kogane! It'd be you!"

"Keith is right, though," Shiro confirmed, snickering. "You're too boisterous. Too outgoing. Too _loud_. I would've thought that they would've killed you before Pidge, to be honest. If you weren't second, then you'd _definitely_ be next, Lance. No question."

"What the _freak?!_ He's _emo!_ He's supposed to die in, like, the first five minutes! Like, you know that one character that doesn't even have a name that's killed off in the very first part of the movie to show that something's seriously screwed up with the place? _That's_ Keith!"

"Oh-ho-ho, _okay_ ," I snarled, raising my eyebrow at him testily, "you're _so_ in your own bed tonight."

" _What?! I'm being real here!"_

"You're one step closer to being _single._ And I'm not _emo."_

"Only emos say that they aren't emo."

" _Lance, for Christ's_ _sake_ _."_

Lance cursed, turning his face away from us for a moment to hide his frustration. "Fine. I'm next. But Keith would be right after me."

"Wrong. Allura would be next," I corrected, still miffed by Lance's outburst. "She's incredibly smart, and super crafty. So, it would seem like she'd be able to keep the other two and herself alive, right? She'd be able to get the other survivors out without a problem."

"Well, they're almost off the hook, and then— _bam!_ That's when she dies," Hunk finished for me, waving his hands in the air for added emphasis, "because everything always goes wrong in a horror movie and that's exactly how it'd play out. It'd leave the last two victims struggling for hope."

"What better two to leave to fend for themselves than the edgy, rugged, battle-thirsty loose cannon and the gentle, anxious, kind-hearted scaredy-cat?" Allura pointed out, her eyes sparkling in the excitement of the placement of her own 'demise'. "It's genius!"

"And _then_ it's me," I finished. "Hunk would make it out with a broken leg or something, and then the movie'd end with our undead bodies being shown outside his window that night."

"Mmkay, well, I'm glad we had that little conversation," Hunk interjected quickly, his eyes still darting around the red-aglow room, "but I think it's time we go see what's going on with the power. It's been, like, ten whole minutes and it still isn't on again. Maybe Coran went to sleep. He'd normally have it fixed by now. Right? Right?"

"Oh, don't be such a crybaby," Allura chastised, waving a hand at him animatedly. "I just need to go flip one teeny-tiny switch in the control panel, and everything will be running smoothly again in no time. You guys stay right here. I'll be right back."

"Shouldn't… Shouldn't one of us go with you?!"

"Don't be _silly,_ Hunk. It's the _Castle._ What could happen?"

"But… But _Allura!"_ Hunk whined, "that's how the first girl got taken down by that group of creepy zombie-vampire clown things!"

I blinked. I knew that line sounded familiar.

" _Don't be stupid. It's just an abandoned insane asylum. What could possibly go wrong?"_

 _Calm down, Keith,_ I told myself quietly. _Your nerves are just shot. It was just a movie._

"Hunk," Shiro said sternly. "This has happened before. It's just the main power switch. I'm sure that Allura is perfectly fine with going down to the control room by herself."

The Hawaiian reluctantly watched Allura's form disappear around a twist in the crimson corridor, her long ponytail swishing back and forth, her nightgown billowing ever-so-slightly with her movements. "Yeah, well… I'd still feel better if someone went with her."

"If it makes you feel better, Hunk, then I'll go with her," Pidge grumbled irritably, turning to him. "Here, we'll be right ba—"

Just then, we heard Allura's piercing shriek ring down the corridor and into the den where we stood frozen in fear. The scream was terrifying enough to send a cascade of shivers down my spine and set each and every hair on my body on end. I could feel goosebumps rise on Lance's caramel skin underneath my fingertips.

It was a moment before anyone reacted.

Finally, Shiro cried out the princess's name in alarm and dashed down the corridor, shoving off the curve in the wall and launching himself in the direction she had been walking.

We broke into action and sprinted after him, stumbling over a combination of long fleece pajama pants and fuzzy slippers.

I skidded around the corner after Shiro, Lance hot on my heels, and found our companion kneeling on the spotless tile floor, bending over something in his hand. He stood facing us and held it out slowly—a single pink gem earring, half of the same exact pair that the princess had been wearing every day since our arrival in the Altean castle. The red light cast strange shadows on Shiro's already distraught face, and made the pink earring look like a burning ember in the palm of his hand.

"What is this?" he droned coldly, looking up at us. "She couldn't have disappeared that quickly. There is literally no other way out of this corridor other than that doorway all the way at the other end." He used his free hand to point down the hall. Sure enough, the end of the corridor was nearly half a football field away. We should've seen her go through that doorway.

"L-L-L-Lance," Hunk started. I could hear the fear seep into his voice. "Lance, I s-swear to God, if you're p-p-playing a trick on us, I'll… I'll…."

"I'll beat your sorry _ass_ ," Shiro finished for him, his eyebrows furrowing together. It was becoming increasingly obvious that he was growing more and more confused and worried about his princess.

I looked up at my partner. His face had become as pale and ashen as his bedsheets, his lips parted in shock and trembling slightly in fear. He shook his head back and forth slowly, the dark pupils of his eyes small and mortified. I took his hand in mine and squeezed it tightly, rubbing circles in the back of his hand in an attempt to calm him down and somehow not show my own concern.

"Surely there's a logical explanation for this," said Pidge. "Allura had only been gone for two ticks from the time that she started walking to the time that she disappeared. It took Shiro one whole tick to make it to the corner, as well as another to find the earring. Stay right here."

She walked back into the den where we stood, then walked back down the corridor at the same speed that Allura had been when she left. Instead of stopping where we stood, Pidge continued to walk the length of the corridor down to where it opened into the next room.

"That's almost ten whole ticks," she called as she made her way back to us. "She wouldn't have even been out of the corridor yet, even if she had run."

"Freaky," I noted, gazing at the earring in Shiro's palm again.

None of the other paladins spoke for several long moments.

"Okay," Lance finally, his voice breaking only slightly. "So, uhm… so we have something seriously screwed-up happening here, and we have no idea where our princess is. _And,_ she's the only one who knows how to turn the power back on, other than Coran. Do we know where Coran is?"

"Maybe his room?" Pidge suggested. "It _is_ past his bedtime. He goes to sleep at, what, eight-o'clock? He's old as dirt. He's probably been out cold for a while by now."

"Probably," Shiro grunted, still concentrating in determination on the earring that lie in his hand.

"Is there a secret panel anywhere in here, maybe?"

"Probably," the former Black Paladin repeated numbly. I had begun to get the feeling that he was no longer interested in the conversation.

After a quick nod in affirmation from Pidge, Lance and I began to knock on the walls, searching for some kind of hollow sound that differentiated from the solidity of the steel around us. Pidge and began to do the same. Hunk was still too petrified to move; Shiro was still gazing at the earring in confusion.

"No luck," Lance said once we had finally given up. "What about you, Keith?"

"Nothing," I replied. "Pidge…?"

She shook her head. "Nope. Not even a trace of a trap-door or _anything_."

Things had gotten a bit uneasy among our group, to say the least. Lance and I exchanged a troubled glance. He took my hand again and lifted my knuckles absentmindedly to his lips, his brow furrowed in concentration.

"Maybe… Maybe we should just split up."

We all looked up at Lance in utter disbelief. Just an hour ago, he had chastised those stupid teenagers in that movie for not staying in one unit

(" _Rule numero uno!_ _ **Never**_ _split up!_ _ **Ever!**_ _")_

and now, here we were—and he was suggesting that we _split up_.

"What happened to _rule numero uno_?" Hunk asked. It was the first time he had spoken in a long while. I jumped. To be honest, I had forgotten that Hunk was even there for a second. "You know, the one that says _explicitly_ not to split up under _any_ circumstances? _Ever?"_

"Well… Our first borrowed concept about horror movies was wrong…" Lance began quietly, his forehead wrinkled faintly. The blood-red light cast a sinister shadow on his face, causing his already-sharp features to seem even sharper and more in-depth. "About the leader being taken first, I mean. So, right now, shouldn't we just assume that we can't just depend on what we learned from horror movies to survive, right? Maybe it really is better if we cover more ground. One team can go and wake up Coran so he can get the castle power going again, and the other team can go search for Allura. What else can we do? We're sitting ducks."

"We can always go back to our rooms and go get some _sleep_ ," suggested Hunk. "That'd be nice."

One look at Shiro's distressed expression told us that it clearly wasn't happening. "I'm not going to bed until I find Allura. Go on and go sleep if you want, Hunk, but I'm going to find her. That goes for all of you. If I have to do it by myself, so be it."

Pidge laid a gentle hand on Shiro's shoulder and shot Hunk a dirty look. "Don't worry, Shiro. We're gonna find her. And we'll all do it _together._ _Right_ _,_ Hunk?"

Hunk pressed his lips together in retaliation, but slowly nodded his head anyway.

The Green Paladin nodded in approval. "Okay, well, then why don't you and Keith and Lance go look for Allura, and Shiro and I can go get Coran?"

Shiro appeared torn for a moment—but then he gave in. "Fine. But as soon as we get Coran up and into the control room, I'm going to look for the princess."

"Fair enough."

"Why did I get put with the them?!" Hunk asked frantically. "We literally _just watched_ a movie where the scaredy-cat got put with the couple and they ended up making stupid, cliché decisions that got them both killed. What if something happens to them at the same time? What am I supposed to do if that happens?!"

Shiro rolled his eyes. "Lance and Keith are better at hand-to-hand combat, Hunk. I'm sure if anything attacked you guys, then you'd be fine."

Hunk looked mildly offended. "Uh, I can take care of myself, too, you know. _I'm_ a Voltron Paladin, too. I mean, yeah, I'm just a mechanic, and yeah I kinda suck at combat that doesn't include a gun or a Lion, but that's not the point!"

"It's just for a minute, Hunk," Pidge told him, clapping her hand on his shoulder. "We'll come find you as soon as we find Coran. Okay?"

"I'm just concerned that this is _exactly_ the way the movie went and _none_ of you are even worried about it _or_ about each other. Like, seriously, something seriously funky is going on here, and I have a really, _really_ bad feeling about this. I swear to God, if one of you is playing a joke, you better quit it now or I _swear to every celestial being in this stupid God-forsaken universe_ I will slaughter _all of you_ in your sleep."

It took a little more convincing, but Hunk finally agreed to break off into groups—even if it was reluctantly, still. I can't say I blamed him. This _was_ going eerily similar to _Night of the Living Undead._ I didn't want to confirm that, or bring it up in any way, though. Hunk was already insanely scared, and I could tell that Lance was getting spooked, too. Showing my own worry with the matter would only make it worse. I just clasped Lance's hand in between my own and led them both through the twists and turns in the castle, trying my best to ignore the eerie shadows that the pulsing red emergency lights cast on the ever-winding corridor walls.


	2. Chapter 2: The Magnitude of Nothing

Shiro and Pidge raced down the corridor adjacent to the one where the other three Paladins had gone. Despite the confusion that clouded her brain as a result of this unexpected incident, Pidge couldn't help but feel a really, really sorry for Shiro.

After all the bullcrap he had endured to survive being captured by Zarkon—not once, but _twice—_ and every little spat and argument he had had to deal up with his team as the leader _, as well as_ losing the Black Lion _and_ his position as the team's head, he had finally found himself with someone that he could go to, someone he could confide in. That person had been none other than their Altean royal mentor, Princess Allura of Planet Altea.

Yeah, Pidge knew that Shiro and Keith had gotten pretty close over the past few years—when the team had gotten separated through that wormhole during their fight with Zarkon previously, Shiro had even given Keith orders to pilot the Black Lion if something were to happen to him (which it was a good thing he did, because something _did_ happen to him). After that experience in particular, they both had begun considering themselves as brothers, and _still_ considered themselves as such. Pidge supposed that Shiro was the closest thing to a brother, let alone a _family_ , that Keith would ever have again.

Despite the bond that Shiro and Keith shared, however, it seemed that Princess Allura had an effect on the former Black Paladin that none of the other Paladins could even _dream_ to have. Allura had become Shiro's rock, his beacon in the midst of the storm.

Could Pidge ever possibly understand why Shiro was so upset over Allura's sudden, unexplained disappearance from that tiny little corridor?

Absolutely. One-hundred percent.

Did that mean that she understood why everyone seemed to be panicking so much over this silly, unrealistic situation?

Absolutely _not_.

After all, the castle had never given them any major problems before—nothing that wasn't fixable, or nothing that had no explanation whatsoever. So why was everyone being such a _crybaby?_ Even Keith, whom Pidge knew to be one of the more rational members of the team, seemed to be just a _little_ freaked out by the whole ordeal. The way he was constantly grabbing at Lance's hand like a child grabs a teddy-bear let her in on _that_ much.

And, despite her claim that she believed Lance was innocent, she still had a growing suspicion that Lance really _was_ the culprit of this strange, bizarre occurrence.

She didn't know _how,_ per-se.

But she would figure it out. She had always been able to figure it out.

The light in that corridor was throwing strange, unconventional shapes in the oddest of places; just because they didn't _hear_ a hollow in the wall or _see_ a hidden door doesn't mean that there just wasn't one that they couldn't quite see with the naked eye at that _exact moment_. Altean technology and architecture was a wonder far, _far_ more advanced than anything any of the five Paladins had ever experienced back on Earth. There was _clearly_ a logical explanation to all of this. Pidge just had to find out exactly what that may be.

Nonetheless, Pidge was all too eager to get things back to normal again before anything else weird could happen. She and Shiro would find Coran, get him to fix the Castle's failing power, and _then_ all five Paladins would head on to find the Princess. They would get whatever caused the problem straightened out, and everything would finally be back to _normal_ —no angsty, jittery Shiro, no terrified, frightened Hunk, and _no missing Princess Allura._

She couldn't help but take notice of the way Shiro seemed to navigate the way to Allura's room with total ease. She hid a smile behind her hand. It always made her happy to realize that Shiro had found someone else to relate to in times of trouble. It was _cute_.

They were the power couple of the Voltron: the Beyoncé and Jay-Z, the Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, the Jim Halpert and Pam Morgan. They were Space Dad Shiro and Space Mom Allura—the _it-_ couple of their humble little troop of misfits.

She shipped it pretty hard—almost as much as she had shipped Lance and Keith before they actually _did_ get together and started being freaking gross with the PDA.

But then again, they were teenagers. What did she expect?

By that point, they reached the hallway that led to the staircase descending to the chambers where Allura and Coran's rooms were located. Shiro was hot on the trail, several meters ahead of Pidge, who adamantly cursed her short legs and her companion's more in-shape physique. Why did he have to be so _tall?_ Pidge didn't think he really noticed how far back she'd straggled. And he was running. _Running!_

Pidge knew that he was worried about his girlfriend and all, but if Space Dad didn't _slow the heck down_ , then Space Dad was gonna lose his corridor buddy. She may not have believed in ghosts, but that didn't mean that she was super-duper excited to be stuck in the maze of hallways by herself.

Her train of thought was interrupted as Shiro suddenly took a knee by the stairwell and held out a sharp hand to stop her. He motioned intensely for her to get down against the wall and be silent. Pidge did what she was told without question. She had learned a _looong_ time ago to trust Shiro with her whole heart—which she did. He was the closest connection that Pidge had had to Matt since his disappearance. Trusting him was her default reaction to anything he did.

But after one glance at Shiro, she stuffed her hand over her mouth and smothered a giggle.

She knew that Shiro was supposed to be one of the fearless, rock-hard leaders of Team Voltron and all, but it was growing increasingly harder to take the situation seriously with Shiro in fuzzy rubber-duck pajama pants and a navy skin-tight shirt that read _Space Dad is Anxious and Sad._ Lance had given him that on Father's Day as a joke. They had all thought it was pretty funny.

(Especially since Allura had received a similar one on Mother's Day that said _Space Mom Has Got It Going On._ She had laughed in delight when she saw Shiro's. They wore the shirts together in public the next time they had gone grocery shopping, much to Lance's pleasant surprise.)

Pidge uncovered her mouth and prepared to point this interesting little tidbit to Shiro, but then stopped abruptly as she caught the bewildered expression on her companion's face.

It was then that she heard the noise.

The sound of a single strangled cry erupted from the darkness down the stairs, followed by several scraping noises and another gruff, sinister voice that Pidge was unfamiliar with. Shiro stood silently to his feet and eased down the stairs one-by-one, Pidge following close behind him.

What in the _Sam Hill_ was going on here?

They reached the bottom of the stairs. Shiro used the light from his Galra-engineered arm to shine around the pitch-black room. They could see nothing but the emptiness of the chamber and a couple of the Altean mice that Allura had befriended. There was no sign of any struggle, or any other living being. Pidge swallowed hard.

Shiro's shoulders slumped. "I could've sworn that first voice sounded like Allura," he whispered, his eyes still frantically scanning the dark room. "You heard that, right, Katie?"

Pidge nodded. Then, realizing that Shiro couldn't see her, she spoke up silently. "You're definitely not going crazy. I heard it. And some scraping noises, and… That other voice. What _was_ that, Shiro?"

She could see Shiro's jaw tense as he ground his teeth together in deep thought. "I… I don't know. But we're about to find out. Come on, let's find Coran. It'll be easier to make sense of this… This… _whatever-this-is_ when the lights are back on."

They both made their way through the darkness. The red emergency lights were much farther spaced out down here, causing the parts of the room that weren't blood-red to be in total, absolute blackness. In that moment, Pidge was grateful to have Shiro's bionic arm and its little searchlight down here. It certainly came in handy.

They were both silent until they reached the door to Coran's room. Shiro knocked, listening out for anyone inside.

They were answered with silence.

He knocked again, slightly more impatient. Pidge could see him twitch his nose in mild annoyance. "Coran? You in there?"

Still nothing.

"Alright, we're coming in." He pressed the button on the doorframe. The door slid open.

The room belonging to the ever-so-tidy Coran was a complete and total wreck.

Picture frames of Coran's family were thrown on the floor. The bedcovers were ripped almost completely off the bed, the nightstand next to the headboard overturned and belongings spilling out of the open drawers. Various articles of clothing were strewn askew in the perimeter of the room. The bathroom door was open, the red emergency lights flashing the only source of light in the bedroom adjoining it. Pidge caught a shocked look pass across Shiro's face for a moment, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared. "Stay here and guard the door," he ordered Pidge. "Don't. Move. If you see or hear _anything_ suspicious, yell as loud as you can. Okay?"

Pidge nodded and reluctantly watched him disappear into the bathroom, a pang of anxiety shredding through her insides.

This didn't seem right. _At all._

He was gone for a few ticks, and she heard the rustling of objects as he searched for clues (or so she assumed) and then a muffled yelp—and then nothing.

Nothing.

She was silent for a moment or two, listening intently for sign of Shiro's presence.

Still nothing.

"Shiro?"

 _More_ nothing.

"Oh, _very funny,"_ she began sarcastically, ignoring the sound of her heart thundering relentlessly in her ears as she eased into the room and made a short beeline for the bathroom. "You're _hilarious,_ Takashi Shirogane. Really. A total _hoot."_

She rounded the door, expecting— _praying—_ to see Shiro standing there with a silly, _I-got-you-good-Pidgey_ grin on his face.

She was met with _nothing_.

 _Nothing_ _._

She blinked in astonishment. "Sh-Shiro…? It's not funny anymore."

She pulled back the shower curtain. No Shiro.

She swung open the door of the linen closet. _No Shiro_. "Shiro…?!"

She even jerked opened the cabinets.

 _No Shiro_ _._

She could feel her breath begin to come in short, shallow gasps. She was on the verge of hyperventilation. _No. No, no_. " _Shiro_?! Man, _this isn't fuckin' funny anymore…!_ "

A deep, threatening anxiety bubbled in her gut. She recognized that sensation all too well. _Oh, no. No, no, no, no. Not this._

Coran was nowhere to be found.

And Shiro had disappeared without a trace.

The only sound in the entire vicinity of the room was a faint, despicable cackling noise that erupted suddenly from a different part of the chamber and sent a barrage of shivers down the young girl's spine.


	3. Chapter 3: Nyctophobia

" _Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I'm a woman's man, no time to talk,"_ Hunk sang lowly under his breath as our little troop trudged its way down the darkened corridor, his voice trembling slightly. " _Music loud, and women warm, I've been kicked around since I was born…._ "

Lance's eyes narrowed as he suddenly whipped around to face the Yellow Paladin, a small smirk on the corner of his lips. "Hunk, are you _seriously_ singing the Bee-Gees? We're on a _mission._ "

"Yeah, a dangerous, _supernatural_ one, if you haven't noticed," Hunk argued, his arms crossed over his chest as we eased down the hall. His eyes darted back and forth anxiously. "And it's 'Stayin' Alive,' mind you. It helps me focus. You know, so I don't have a freakin' panic attack?"

Lance huffed and shook his head in an amused sort of exasperation as he turned to face forward again. But, despite his outwardly playful demeanor, I could tell that he was growing increasingly restless. I could see the tension of the muscles in his shoulders. I could see the hint of fear underneath the cool expression in his eyes. His unease was becoming more and more obvious to me with every single movement he made.

"Man," he began, "if you're gonna sing us a theme song, then make it something _cool_ and _edgy_ , like _'_ Welcome to the Black Parade' or 'The Kill' or something."

"Okay, stop right there. Stop _right there._ You did _not_ just diss the Bee-Gees, and you did _not_ just suggest two—not one, but _two—emo anthems_ as our theme song. Keith, you're corrupting our Shakira-loving, Lady-Gaga-singing Cuban. I can't _believe_ you."

I chuckled. "Hey, it's not my fault that he's finally getting into some good music," I replied as our trio pivoted around a corner in the hallway. "It's about time he started listening to stuff that _doesn't_ involve crappy mid-2000s club beats."

"Excuse you?" Lance interrupted, mildly offended, "Kesha is _early 2010s_. You aren't giving me enough credit, Mullet."

Suddenly, the faint sound of socked feet pounding toward on the hard tile floor reached my ears. I froze, perplexed.

There was someone ahead.

Who in the _quiznak_ …?

"And most of the Beyoncé that I listen to is from her _Lemonade_ album _,_ and _that_ one wasn't even released until 2016 so your little insult is _completely_ irrelevant—"

" _Shut it_ ," I hissed at him out of the corner of my mouth, holding out my right arm to catch him before he could saunter past me.

"'Shut it'? Don't talk to me like that!"

I turned to him and violently rammed my index finger over his lips, frantically motioning for him to listen with my free arm. Surprisingly, he did what I ordered him, his eyebrows furrowing intently after a moment of reluctant silence. Hunk leaned in between us, his eyes closed in concentration.

They were definitely footsteps, all right.

Rapid footsteps. Like someone was running.

And they were coming _straight toward us_.

"Let's go, let's go, _let's go,"_ Hunk gasped out excitedly as he attempted to pull us in the other direction. "Guys, we need to _go!"_

I shook my head quickly. "No, Hunk, we _can't._ What if it's Allura?"

"Then she's running for a reason!" He jerked his head aggressively toward the way that we had come. "And maybe we should run, too!"

I ignored him, instead rounding the corner and calling the princess's name.

"Allura! Princess Allura, is that you?!"

" _Keith!"_

I started. That wasn't Allura.

Lance brushed past me and cupped both hands over his mouth. "Pidge?! Pidge, is that you?!"

Sure enough, Pidge's short, thin outline appeared abruptly as she sprinted toward us in the darkness. The ominous crimson light flung her multi-faceted shadow on the walls, giving the illusion of a dozen Pidges in the narrow hallway instead of only one. She stumbled over her slippers and then hurled herself at me, her figure collapsing in exhaustion in my arms. Her breathing came in shallow, irregular gasps, her red-rimmed eyes wide with fright beneath her round turtle-shell glasses. "Keith! Keith, it's Shiro, he… He…!" She was on the verge of hyperventilation. We had to do something to calm her down.

I blinked and patted her arm lightly, seating her on the floor and settling into a cross-legged sit in front of her. Lance took a knee close behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the firsts clouds of worry sweep over his dark features.

" _Sweet mother of the Virgin_ _Mary_ _, I really need my inhaler…!"_ she wheezed, clapping her hand over her chest.

"Breathe, just breathe," Hunk told her calmly. He knelt beside Pidge and laid a meaty arm over her shoulders in support. "Like this, see? Look at me. Inhale… Hold… Exhale."

Her eyes locked onto our Hawaiian friend's as she took a deep breath, her shoulders rising with the amount of air she had taken in. The panic in her eyes ebbed slightly as her breath vacated from her chest in a shaky, tremoring exhale.

"Good, good. That's good. Here, again, okay? I'll do it with you…."

I watched in silence as Pidge's terror eventually slowed enough for her to function properly again. She took a long moment to re-gather herself afterward, her eyes squeezing shut as she gulped down another fresh breath of air. Her fingers were still wringing the hem of her shirt anxiously. I could tell that her hands were still quivering, despite Hunk's valiant effort to guide her out of her panic attack.

This was extremely, _extremely_ unlike Pidge Gunderson.

She was supposed to be the level-headed one. If she was _this_ terrified of whatever was going on in the Castle of Lions, then….

A shiver ran down my spine. I swallowed hard and tried to repress the rest of that thought from my mind. _No, no, Keith,_ I told myself, _don't panic. You're okay. Your team is_ _fine_ _._ _It doesn't matter what's happening, we can fix it. We_ always _have._

But for some reason, I had the feeling that this was a problem we just couldn't fix on our own.

Finally, Pidge looked up at each of us, a solemn expression on her face. She ran a hand through her sandy-brown bangs, her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "Okay, I… I think I'm okay now. I'm okay." She turned to Hunk and yielded him a meek, grateful smile. "Thanks, Hunk."

He nodded, happily returning her expression. "Don't mention it, man."

"Now, if you can—tell us what happened," I urged her gently. "Where's Shiro?"

She took a few more ticks to gather her thoughts together, and then she began to speak. She described in great detail the path that she and Shiro had taken to the Altean's chambers, the ominous noises they had heard before they descended the stairs, the state of the sabotaged room, the sudden disappearance of our friend, and the faint, manic laughter that she had heard that had sent her in a panic-stricken scramble to find us.

"He… He was _gone,"_ she breathed incredulously, her eyes wide as they stared far off into the distance. "Coran was _nowhere._ We didn't even see a trace of him—it was just the ruined room. And I checked _everywhere_ in that bathroom, there's no way out of that room other than the door to get in. Unless Shiro somehow shrunk to microscopic size and _flushed himself down the toilet,_ I have _no_ explanation for this whatsoever." She was still shaking as she looked back up at me, then to Lance. "Jesus, I know you guys probably think I'm just spouting off bullcrap, but I'm totally serious. I can normally think of _something_ to explain all of this stuff—you guys _know_ I can, but… But… I have _nothing. No_ explanation. _At all._ "

There was a long, _long_ silence between the four of us as we contemplated Pidge's final statement. Not only was Allura _and_ her right-hand missing—but now we were _sure_ that something was going very, _very_ wrong in the Castle of Lions— _in our own home—_ and now our closest friend and leader was gone as well.

Our _leader_. My _brother._

I fought back the tears that burned maliciously in my eyes and threatened to pool on my eyelashes, chomping down on my lower lip so hard that I could taste the metallic tinge of blood in my mouth.

 _Shiro is gone_.

I had lost him twice, and he had come back both times—and now he was _gone again._ And, this time, Princess Allura and Coran had vanished, as well. They were the closest thing I'd had in my life to parental figures since my dad had passed away when I was a teenager, since my mom had left when I was a baby.

And now they were _gone_.

I violently wrenched that thought out of my mind's grasp for now. There were three other people—three more people that I considered _family_ : a sister, a brother, and a significant other—that were still alive and well, that still needed saving. _They_ were my priority now.

In other words:

Mourn for the dead later.

They're not coming back anytime soon.

Hunk and I exchanged a deeply unsettled glance. His lips were pressed together in a thin line, his face pale and ashen. "Does this mean… Does this mean we're all alone? It's just us?"

I nodded slowly, contemplating this fact in my mind. "I… I guess so."

"Well…." Lance began, slowly turning his deep-blue eyes to up to look at me in determination. "You're… You're our leader, Keith. What should we do?"

I buried my face in my hands for a moment. I had to come up with something. I had to tell them _something._

But the truth was, I didn't know. I didn't know what to do. I had never _dealt_ with anything like this before. How was I supposed to lead them all by myself?

I had done it before, yeah, but those were _entirely_ different circumstances—and I had ended up failing them. We had ended up getting separated in a giant cosmic cloud that screwed up our communications and almost cost us our lives. And it was because _I didn't know what I was doing._

I had failed my team. Luckily for us, we had all made it out of the firefight safely.

But that was _then._ Shiro and Allura had watched my back after that.

What would happen to them if I failed them this time?

It was pointless to even ask myself that question.

I knew _exactly_ what would happen to them.

 _They'd be dead_.

I was still for another moment before I looked back up at the three Voltron Paladins in front of me. "Okay, guys. Here's the plan for now.

"If we could just make it to our rooms long enough to grab our gear, then we can have a chance at this… This… whatever-the-hell this thing is. We'll take the back way through the Castle to get to the Paladin's quarters, and then we can figure out what to do from there. I really don't think that we _need_ to come up with a plan of attack just yet—we don't even know what we're fighting, so to waste our time on a battle plan would be completely useless."

"Whoah, whoah, whoah," Hunk interrupted, a quizzical expression on his features. "Pause that. By 'back way', do you mean…?"

"The maintenance tunnels," I confirmed.

"Why would we take the _maintenance tunnels?!_ Do you even know how frickin' _creepy_ those things are?!"

"I get it," Lance began, rubbing his chin with the back of his hand. "You wanna throw this thing off by using the passages that aren't normally used, right?"

"Not only that, but the tunnels are a _much_ quicker way to the Paladin's quarters," Pidge responded. "I see where you're coming from. The tunnels are shorter, and they don't twist and turn as much. They're… They're shaped kind of like this." She took her index and middle fingers of each hand and held them up in a grid-like style. "Instead of all the curves and bends, we can easily take the straight shot into the Paladin headquarters a couple of floors down. There are also stairs in the maintenance shaft, instead of elevators, so that'll eliminate part of the problems as to _how_ we're gonna get down there. They're steep stairs, but…" She shrugged. "Better than jumping down an elevator shaft and praying that we won't shatter our legs to bits on the floor."

I nodded, smirking at her last remark. "Exactly. And from there, we'll be able to avoid the main passageways throughout the Castle—passageways that this thing will most likely be hunting for us in."

"Where's the nearest entrance to the maintenance tunnels, Pidge?" Hunk asked.

"We're practically smack-dab in the middle of the fourth floor, now," she replied, "and so… From here, the nearest entrance is on the south side of this floor, right where you'd come in to the den."

"So, half the floor away."

Pidge nodded.

The Yellow Paladin huffed in exasperation. "Great. We're going _right back_ into the _same_ _hallway_ we were in when Allura disappeared."

I chuckled emptily. "We sure are."

There was another brief moment of silence as we pondered this.

It hit me in that moment of silence that Lance's hand had suddenly grown as cold as ice in my own. His fingers seized my own tightly without warning. A whimper erupted from between his lips.

I forced a laugh in an attempt to lighten the mood. "What is it, McClain? Too much of a pansy to go through with this?"

Normally, Lance would've objected to that comment…

("Nuh- _uh!_ I'm _totally_ readier for this than _you_ are, Mullet!")

…but he was uncharacteristically quiet. A glance in his direction quickly illustrated why.

His dark-blue eyes were gazing intently down the corridor. They glinted brightly with this strange emotion that I could only describe as pure and utter terror. I slowly followed his gaze.

There was a light glinting in the opposite corridor—a strange green light, orb-like, in sharp contrast with the red emergency lights that flashed around us. I tried not to stare too long at it, as to not alert Pidge and Hunk of its presence. They were already in a fragile state; the last thing that I wanted to do was put them under more stress. Plus, it's not like the light was _moving_ or anything _._ It was just hovering there at the opposite end of the corridor, roughly the size of a baseball—or maybe a little larger. No big deal. It was just enough to be unnerving, that's all.

Right?

 _Right?_

"Uh… Keith? Lance? Are you two alright?"

I ripped my gaze away from the orb and forced a smile. "Yeah. We're fine. Just checking to make sure we're safe. That's all. _Right,_ Lance?" After noticing that he had failed to respond in a timely manner, I jabbed him hard in the ribs to catch his attention.

He blinked after a moment, his eyes still staring at the thing on the opposite end of the corridor. His reply seemed distant, empty. "Yeah… Right."

And then the orb cackled. _Cackled._ Like the damn _Joker._

Pidge's already wide eyes grew so wide that I was sure they were going to pop out of her skull. Her jaw dropped open as she gasped in terror. "Th-that's it," she whimpered, her fists clenching so tightly that they had turned bone-white, "that's the cackle. _That's the fucking cackle, Keith._ "

My blood froze in my veins as the brightness of the light faded slightly—and the silhouette of the monster that plagued our team was revealed.

The creature had a sharp, sallow face as pale as spoiled milk, with a menacing grin so grotesque and so unpleasant that it made my stomach churn in terror. The gums that revealed themselves beneath the scabbed, rotting lips were a disgusting shade of green that reminded me of the years-old layers of algae that I'd seen on broken glass on a wet riverbank. The teeth that protruded from those horrible gums glinted in the terrible green hue of the lantern in its hand, their tips as sharp as razors and as black as obsidian. Its hair was matted in two filthy, fluorescent-orange plumes on each side of its head; what was left of its motley clothing hung in tattered rags from its mutilated body. I covered my mouth with my hand and retched as the putrid miasma of the thing's rotting flesh hit my nostrils full-force.

But, the most horrifying thing about that… That… _abomination…_ was its _eyes_ _…_

 _..._ Or, should I say, _its lack thereof_.

In place of its eyes, there were huge, gaping black holes that seemed to stare directly into my very soul. The empty sockets oozed with revolting amounts of blood and pus. I resisted the urge to retch into my hand again.

The sheer coldness of its empty gaze seemed to envelop the four of us in an unfathomable, paralyzing fear that made our teeth chatter uncontrollably in our skulls.

A long, low whine erupted from Lance's throat. I felt his hands trembling in my own.

" _Lance? What's going on?!"_

Only a split second later, the thing started _flying_ toward us with an incredible, supernatural speed, illuminating the hallway with a light so eerie that it sent a shred of horror stabbing into my chest.

"Run," I hissed at them in alarm, unable to tear my eyes away.

Pidge's eyes were gaping with panic. " _Keith?!_ "

I stood violently to my feet and jerked Pidge up, hurling her into Hunk's arms and shoving Lance in front of me.

" _RUN!_ "

They didn't ask questions. They just ran. I pursued Lance around every twist and turn that the Castle corridors made, looking back occasionally to be sure that Hunk and Pidge were still following close behind us (which they were; Hunk had flung Pidge over his shoulder as we ran, where she flopped around like a ragdoll and clung to his fleece pajama button-up for dear life, a horrified expression glued to her pale features). I could still hear the incessant cackling shrieking in my ears, could still smell the stench of the beast's decomposing flesh in my nostrils. The combination of those two horrifying sensations directed fresh waves of toxic adrenaline through my body, propelling me ever forward after Lance in the darkness.

My lungs ached for oxygen; my muscles burned with fatigue.

I may have originally been the fastest out of all three of my companions, but I had underestimated the speed at which Lance could move those long, lanky legs when he was being motivated by nothing but pure adrenaline. I was still keeping up with him easily, but Hunk was beginning to struggle, his pace becoming sluggish and his breathing becoming increasingly labored.

We couldn't go on like this.

There was no way we could _survive_ like this.

And then, it was like some kind of heavenly deity answered the prayers that our hearts were screaming out in desperation. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an elevator shaft that previously had been in the process of closing as the power shut off—leaving a space just wide and tall enough to fit four fully-grown Paladins beneath the powerless elevator that loomed above. I snatched the back of Lance's flannel pajama shirt and pulled him into the small hallway before we blazed past it, Hunk and Pidge close at our heels.

"Lance," I began quickly, eyeing the clown-like beast and its eerie lantern of green light that was quickly gaining on us on the other end of the corridor, "remember when we tried to go to the pool and the elevator stopped and we had to jump down the shaft?"

He nodded, his eyes brimming with fear as the disgraceful thing in the corridor gave out another piercing, wretched laugh. "Yeah, that was back when I hated your guts."

"Remember how we landed in the pool?"

He gave me a puzzled expression. "Yeah, but that was a whole story down, I don't get what you're…" He caught my gaze and followed it to the shaft. "… Jesus, Keith, no, _no—"_

 _"We don't have a choice!"_ I screeched at him, spinning him on his heels and shoving him urgently toward the hole beneath the elevator.

He shot me a look of panic. "Keith…! _Keith, we can't to this!_ "

"Don't _argue_ with him, Lance!" Hunk barked at him as he swiftly set Pidge on the floor, "There's no _time_!"

" _Go_!" I screamed at him. "Don't panic! We'll meet you down!"

He gave me another tortured look as he slid into the hole feet-first. " _If I die, I love you!_ " he blurted at me, grasping at my hand and squeezing his eyes shut.

I gave his shoulders a rough push, sending him flying down the shaft. " _Go!"_

Pidge was next. I steered her towards the hole. "Pidge, remember when you mentioned jumping down an elevator shaft and potentially shattering our legs to bits on the floor?"

She chuckled emptily. "Huh. Well, frick."

"Hold your breath," I told her. "Give me your glasses, I'll put them in my pocket."

She did what she was told, and then launched herself down the shaft. It almost reminded me of a kid throwing themselves excitedly down a waterslide.

Only this wasn't a waterslide. It was an elevator shaft.

And this wasn't for fun. It was so we _wouldn't die._

"Go, Hunk!"

Hunk shook his head vigorously, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. "No. No, I'm not gonna be able to fit. _You_ go."

My breath caught in my throat. The dread unfurled through my insides as the gravity of his statement struck me full-force.

 _Why hadn't I thought of that?_

 _Why had that never crossed my mind?!_

Lance was tall and skinny. Pidge was no larger than a child. I might have had more muscle than both of them combined, but I was still small enough to squeeze myself inside.

We could all fit into that hole into the elevator shaft.

All of us except for Hunk, who was two-hundred-fifty pounds of pure meat.

But that didn't mean I wasn't gonna try my best to cram him in there. I seized his gigantic wrist in both my hands and began to drag him toward the elevator shaft. "Hunk, come on! _Let's go!"_

 _If I play it off like nothing's wrong,_ my panic-stricken brain was screaming, _then everything'll turn out all right. Isn't that how this works? Isn't it?!_

" _I'm not going to fit!"_ he howled at me, tugging his wrist out of my grasp.

"Hunk! This isn't a time to play chicken! _Let's go!"_

 _"Dammit, Keith, just fuckin' listen to me!"_

I froze.

Hunk only cursed when shit had gotten serious.

And, apparently, shit had just gotten _serious._

" _Listen_ to me! _I can't fit_ _!_ Now, I can go to this thing and distract it long enough for you guys to make it down the shaft. So, _go!"_

" _I'm not leaving without you!"_

 _"Yes, you_ _ **are!**_ "

He threw me over his shoulder unexpectedly and stomped to the hole, holding me down and forcing me in. I screeched at him loudly in protest, trying to thrash my way out, trying to convince him to _try, just try, please for the love of God, Hunk, just try to fit, just try to_ _live_ _—_ but he just pinned my fists on either side of my head and looked down into my eyes with this fierce, very un-Hunk-like look.

"Look at me!" he shouted. "You're my _friends! Every single one of you!_ And if my entire purpose for sticking around in space with you guys after we defeated Zarkon was to give my life up to save yours, then I'm _really freakin' glad_ that I stuck around—"

"Hunk, _please—!"_

"—and I love you guys like I love my own family, maybe even more, _and I swear to everything holy, Keith Akira Kogane, if you let Lance die and he ends up having to haunt this castle with me for all eternity, I'll_ _never_ _forgive you and I swear I'll hide all of your underwear in the freezer and then_ _glue_ _the freezer door shut!"_

My eyes stung red-hot with tears. " _Hunk, please, just_ _think of what you're doing_ … _!_ "

 _"I know what I'm doing,"_ he responded stonily, his eyes glinting viciously with determination, " _so quit trying to stop me. I'm doing this because I have to."_

 _"_ _Hunk_ _!"_

He clapped me hard on the shoulder. " _Take care of them, Keith."_

With that, he shoved me down into the hole. I could just barely see him rush into the corridor, followed immediately by that cursed laughter.

His voice echoed down the elevator shaft after me.

" _Come on, you stupid zombie ghost-clown dude!_ _ **Come and fuckin' get me**_ _!"_


	4. Chapter 4: Down the Rabbit-Hole

My breath quickly vacated my lungs as the darkness of the elevator shaft enveloped me. The shaft couldn't be any larger than eight-by-eight feet, but it felt like the size of a Porta-Potty stall. It was pitch-black, save the red light marking the end of the tunnel below me. I could feel the deep grasps of claustrophobia clenching the back of my neck like a mother cat clutches her kitten in her mouth. The magnitude of guilt that I suffered from Hunk's sacrifice settled deep in my abdomen like a chunk of heavy lead. I felt sick to my stomach—whether it was from the formerly mentioned event or the three-story free-fall that sent me somersaulting into the darkness, I couldn't tell. The sensation of the fall sent my brain askew; I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think—I couldn't even _scream._

For a brief moment, I wondered if this was how Alice felt when she fell down the rabbit-hole.

Probably not. She probably wasn't mourning the loss of two-thirds of her family.

Or being chased by a god-forsaken zombie ghost-clown.

The three-story freefall into the pool would have most definitely had enough force to kill all three of us, I was sure.

I should've thought this through.

 _I should've thought all of this through._

I could hear Pidge and Lance's terrified screams bouncing back up the elevator shaft, ringing shrilly in my ears and causing my head to spin in circles, adding to the increasingly-nauseating sensation in my stomach. I could feel light of the end of the tunnel rush up at me, could feel the wind whipping my hair back from my face.

 _This is it,_ I remember thinking.

 _This is the end of it all. I'm sure of it_.

I squeezed my eyes shut and muttered a half-hearted prayer as I slipped out of the darkness of the shaft and into the freezing-cold Altean water.

For a moment, everything seemed still. The water appeared to slow the mechanisms of time itself. I could see air bubbles drifting lazily up to the surface from underneath my body. The chlorinated water that penetrated my eyes burned like fire. If I squinted hard enough, I could barely make out the outline of Lance's and Pidge's bodies as they swam to the surface.

I gasped for air as my head finally breached the water. For a moment, I searched the surface for Lance and Pidge, the former of whom gave me a small whoop and a wave as he caught sight of my head bobbing on top of the water.

"Hey! Keith! We're over here!"

He had gathered Pidge in one arm and had begun propelling himself towards the pool ladder to our left. I doggy-paddled my way to him and grasped the edge of the concrete between my fingers, spotting Pidge from behind as she climbed the ladder and exited the icy pool-water.

We heaved ourselves onto the dry cement at the water's edge, our soaking-wet pajamas clinging stubbornly to our skin. Lance shivered and rubbed his hands over his arms in a desperate attempt for warmth, leaning his body against mine and taking a deep, shaky breath in. For a moment, he looked as if he were about to say something—but then his mouth closed, his lips pressing together in a thin line as he glanced anxiously over the pool's glassy surface.

"Frick _,"_ Pidge cursed, frantically wringing out her shirt. Her teeth were chattering. "Frick, frick _, frick. That's_ _freezing_ _._ How do you guys swim in that?!"

"Well, Pidgeon, it's a lot _warmer_ under normal circumstances," Lance retorted in exasperation, his eyes still focused intently on the water. I hid my cringe. I knew exactly what he was looking for. The lead in my abdomen grew heavier.

I remembered Pidge's glasses and reached into my pocket to pull them out, shaking them off a little to rid them of the water and passing them into her hands. "They're, ah… They're a little wet."

"Th-th-thank you, Keith," she stuttered, unfolding them and shoving them onto the bridge of her nose. "I appreciate it."

I made an attempt to squeeze the excess water from my hair and my clothing, but quickly gave up. It was no use to even try. It wasn't gonna do any good. After a moment, I realized that Lance had vanished from his position beside me. I groaned inwardly and pivoted my body around in search of him.

No. I couldn't lose Lance, too.

I _needed_ that boy. _I couldn't lose him, too_.

A sigh of relief flooded between my lips as I caught sight of his tall, lanky figure walking toward us with four huge, fluffy white towels in his arms. He passed one into each of our hands, then looked out over the surface of the water again hopefully. After a moment, he turned back to me, a deep, unbelieving panic growing rapidly beneath the surface of his irises. "Keith…? Where… Where is Hunk?"

I stared back at him, utterly speechless.

How was I supposed to tell him?

How was I supposed to tell him that his best friend was dead?

How was I supposed to tell him that _I_ was the one who let him die?

The panic in his eyes grew more crazed, more pronounced at my hesitance to reply. The remaining two towels in his arms tumbled to the damp concrete as Lance's hands formed into white-knuckled fists at his sides. "Keith… _where is Hunk?!"_

Pidge paused rubbing her hair with her towel and looked expectantly up at me, her eyes darkening in realization. "No… No, Keith—"

I caught my lip between my top and bottom teeth and bit down on it so hard that I could taste my own blood as it gushed into my mouth. I reluctantly turned my gaze to the floor, ashamed of myself. My fists clenched and unclenched repeatedly. _How was I supposed to tell them this?!_

Lance inhaled deeply. His breath quivered and hung in the air for a long moment, and then he spoke, the tone of his voice both filled with despair and dead of emotion at the same time.

"He's dead. He's fucking dead, isn't he?"

I didn't reply. I couldn't bring myself to.

" _Keith, tell me he's alive! Tell me he's fucking alive!_ _ **Please!**_ _"_

I forced myself to look into Lance's eyes. I tried to open my mouth and speak, but a sob strangled the words from my throat before they could escape. All that I could manage to do was shake my head, my bottom lip quivering uncontrollably as what little glimmer of hope Lance's eyes had held shattered into a million pieces.

There was a moment of silence as the gravity of the situation crushed the three of us beneath its tremendous weight. Suddenly, a guttural, miserable growl ripped its way up Lance's throat as he turned to the wall and slammed both fists into it as hard as possible with a loud, sickening _crack._ He shrieked a couple of Spanish curses that I didn't quite understand as he landed a solid kick into the baseboard, along a few English words that I _definitely_ understood but wouldn't dare repeat out loud. I forced myself to look away from the scene that unfolded before me, anguish and shame tormenting the depths of my mind.

This was my fault.

 _This was all my fault._

Hunk and Lance had been best friends ever since they had first become roommates in the Garrison almost five years ago. They had been inseparable since. And now, because of my little mishap, because of _my misjudgment,_ because of _my inability to focus_ _—_ he was gone.

"What… What happened?" Pidge whimpered, her voice uncharacteristically meek.

I shoved my head into the palm of my hand and rubbed it over my forehead and into my hair.

 _No. No, no…._

"He was right behind us—… _Keith.._."

 _I can't do this. I can't tell them. I can't—…._

I looked up at her.

Big mistake.

Her hazel eyes were filled to the brim with tears. They began to pour down her face in waterfalls as her face crumpled in sorrow. "Keith… Hunk was _right behind us._ And Shiro was _right behind me._ And Allura was _right_ _there_ and they're _all dead._ _They're gone_ _. What's happening, Keith?_ _Why is this happening to us_ _?!_ "

I wish I could've said something. I just stared at her stupidly and tried not to cry as my fingers twisted in my hair, my mouth agape.

 _Be strong. You have to be strong. For them._

My eyes flickered to Lance, who was still throwing pointless, rage-fueled punches at the white-tiled wall.

 _You have to be strong. For_ _ **him**_ _, if no one else._

Instead, I turned the subject back to Hunk, taking deep breath and burying the lump in my throat back into the depths my stomach. I couldn't cry. I wouldn't. _Be strong. For them._

"He… He told me that he wanted to distract that… That… _Whatever_ that was," I told them. The voice that came out of my throat was barely above a whisper. If I tried to speak any louder, my voice would split in two, and the dam that kept my emotions at bay would rupture. I refused to let that happen. I _refused._ "He said… He said…."

 _You're wrong,_ that evil voice in my head sneered at me. _You're wrong, and you know it. He wouldn't fit. You didn't think this through. You didn't_ _focus_ _, you weren't_ _patient,_ _you didn't even_ _try_ _to save him. You were_ _ **wrong.**_ _And, now, Hunk is_ _dead_ _because of your idiocy._

I squeezed my eyes shut and violently shook the thought away. _Shut the hell up._

I could deal with the consequences of that later. Right now, we needed our bayards— _something_ to protect us, something to use against whatever was plaguing us.

"He told me… He said… 'if my entire purpose for sticking around in space with you guys after we defeated Zarkon was to give my life up to save yours, then I'm _really freakin' glad_ that I stuck around…' And he told me that he loved us like family, and… And…."

I let my voice trail off. If I spoke any more, then the dam would most definitely break.

The quiet, virulent moments that echoed between the three of us after that were nearly deafening. They seemed to last for minutes.

Hours.

Decades, even.

Lance pounded his forehead against the wall and slammed his fists into the tile again. His anger seemed to melt into sadness in the form of a long, tormented groan as he beat his fists on either side of his head one final time, and then paused. After a moment, he buried his face in the palms of his hands and let out a miserable sob. The tears in his eyes finally began to drip down his cheeks and roll off of his chin in large beads as his body slid slowly down the wall and came to rest on the floor. His forehead was still pressed against the wall, his fists still glued to the tile.

His raw grief nearly sent me into shock. Never before had I seen Lance in such a state as this—no, not in anything like this.

I had seen him cry. There had been many times when Lance had curled up beside me and laid his head in my lap and just _cried—_ cried for his family, cried because he was homesick, cried because _being a Paladin is really frickin' hard._ I understood that.

I understood why he was crying, now. I understood his anger. I understood his rage. I understood his denial, his despair, his agony, his _everything._

But it still caught me off guard to see him like this, to see him cloaked in such grief. It sent another knife of steely guilt plunging deep into the fathoms of my chest.

 _You're the reason why he's like this. You caused his pain. I hope you're happy._

A few more minutes passed as the three of us sat in mourning. So _much_ had happened in the past two hours. It was getting increasingly difficult for my mind to process the situation at hand. How did this thing get on our ship? How did it take out _Shiro_ so easily? Where had it even _come_ from?

That stupid, God-forsaken voice reared its ugly head in my brain again.

 _You could've prevented this. It's your fault._

I inhaled deeply, then let my breath escape slowly from between my lips.

 _Not now, dammit. I don't feel like dealing with you._

 _You can't just brush me off, Keith,_ it growled back at me. _You'll have to deal with me eventually._

I chose to ignore the voice in my head again for now. We had to get out of here. We had to get to somewhere safe. Surely, it wouldn't take very long for that revolting _thing_ to discover where the elevator shaft had spit us out. Time was of the essence—and we didn't have much of it.

Right now, Lance was my priority. He was the one I needed to focus on. I would argue with the poison in my head later.

If we could just get somewhere _safe,_ where we could lament over this in _peace…._

My feet carried me tentatively forward to where my partner sat on the frigid cement. I placed a hand on his shoulder; the fabric of his t-shirt was freezing cold and soaked through-and-through. There were goosebumps forming all over his arms. He was still shivering.

I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down before I finally allowed myself to begin to speak.

"Lance, babe," I began quietly, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Come on. We need to get out of here and find someplace safe. Somewhere to hide… To regather. Or _something_. We can't stay here."

"Where do you suggest we go?" he asked coldly, his voice dead and venomous. "Exactly where are we gonna go to get away from this thing? We aren't _safe,_ Keith. We'll never be _safe._ _You_ _can't keep us safe. You can't just play hero in this situation and swoop in to save the day like you always do._ _You can't keep us safe._ " He pronounced this last sentence slowly, syllable-by-syllable. " _No one can. So, what do you expect us to do?! Where are we supposed to_ _go_ _?!"_

"I don't know," I responded calmly, recoiling slightly as his tone. His words stung me, but I knew that he didn't really mean them.

He was in pain. People said things that they didn't mean when they were in pain.

I sat down on the cold floor beside him, my back slumped against the cold tile, and rested my head against him, the skin of my cheek pressed against his shoulderblade. My arm wrapped around his waist and pulled him closer to me. His fists dropped onto his thighs as his tears began to fall faster into his lap.

I tried to search for words to fill the silence. "If we can just find our bayards—"

"What's a bayard gonna do against something we can't even see?" Pidge interrupted sharply, shuffling over to us and plopping down hard on the other side of me. She glumly laid her forehead on my shoulder and hooked her arm in mine. Her voice broke again as she spoke. "Why is this happening to us?" she wondered aloud, her volume steadily increasing with each syllable. "We're freaking _Voltron Paladins, Keith._ We defeated _Zarkon_ for God's sake. We ended a _ten-thousand-year-old_ threat to the universe _and_ his son in _four years. Four-fucking-years!_ How in the _hell_ are we being killed off like this?!"

I pulled her into a half-hug underneath my arm, burying my face in Lance's back.

"I don't know, Pidgeon," I replied, my voice muffled in Lance's t-shirt. I could feel my own tears escaping my eyes now. "I don't know. I just _don't know_. If I could just _think of something_ —"

My voice broke off as I felt Lance's body shudder violently under my cheek. He let out another loud, broken sob. I buried my face deeper into the fabric of his shirt.

Then, a morbid thought entered my brain.

 _If there really_ _is_ _a God out there somewhere, He's probably laughing at us. We're nothing but pawns on a chess board to Him, pieces of a forgotten game on His coffee table, and He's sitting on His throne in Heaven,_ _laughing at us._

Pidge finally pulled out of my arms after several minutes. "Well…" she began, her voice still thick with emotion, "you're right, I guess. We need to get out of here, or at least get to someplace else. Before that creature gets wise and finds us and kills us, too." I couldn't see her face, but I knew that her cheeks were puffy and that her eyes were red and swollen beneath the golden frames of her glasses. "Let's just go get our bayards and _kill_ the bastard."

I began to rub circles in Lance's back with my thumb as he tugged gently at his shirt. "Come on, darlin'. We need to move."

He didn't even utter a word in reply to me. He never argued with me. He never hesitated. He stood without even pausing for a single second and turned to face me, his eyes meeting mine for a moment as he took my hand in his and helped tug me back to my feet.

I felt another sharp, lingering pang in my chest as I saw the heart-wrenching expression looming in the depths of his pupils.

The deep, ocean-blue irises of his eyes—the ones that I loved so much, the ones that I loved to watch glitter with excitement as the stars reflected in their solemn depths, the ones I loved to gaze at longingly as he sang his stupid, lame pop songs as he did that little dance he so often did where he spun in a circle and purposely sang off-key, the ones that I loved to stare into and marvel at as they blinked open drowsily next to mine—were in so much _pain_. _So much pain_. The usual teasing laughter that lived deep within those eyes had died, had been strangled in the midst of the terrible things that had befallen us. That laughter had been replaced by a hardness, by an emotionlessness that squeezed painfully at my soul, that yanked at my heartstrings so hard that I was sure that they would snap in two and disintegrate right there in my chest. I had never, _never_ in my twenty years of life seen another human being writhing in so much pain, not since the day after my father's funeral when I had sat in front of the floor-length mirror in the bathroom and gazed vacantly at my own reflection.

But in that moment….

In that moment, as I watched the light die from Lance's eyes, my heart cracked in two.

I just wanted him to feel whole again. The emptiness in his eyes made my stomach churn.

I wanted to envelop him deep in my arms and hug him so tightly that all of the little broken pieces of his shattered soul would stick back together, and then I wanted to hold him until the world around us ended and faded into nothing, until our names faded from the mouths of all those who knew us, until _Lance's soul became whole again._

But that wasn't possible, no. Not at this moment—no.

Not at all.


	5. Chapter 5: Twenty Seconds

I kicked the automated door that led to the Paladins' quarters as hard as I could with my bare foot. The sound of my heel hitting the steel door sent a resounding _clang_ echoing down the empty hallway. The vibrations jolted my ankle so hard that I could feel the joint pop as a hot shred of pain stabbed up through my leg.

" _Son of a_ _ **BITCH!**_ " I screeched angrily at the door, twisting my fingers into my hair. I glared up beyond the ceiling, beyond the endless floors of the Castle of Lions, beyond the stars and nebulas in the universe surrounding us. " _Are you just gonna tease us like this, man?! Are you up there fuckin' toying with us?!"_

If we could have just made it to our rooms to get our bayards, then we could have had a chance.

Just _one chance_. That's all we ever needed.

Only _one chance_.

But, as fate would have it, there was _one problem_ that threw a wrench in the gears of the _one chance_ we had been given.

The only door leading to our quarters was motion-activated, and there was no way to get it open from the outside with the Castle's power out of commission.

"Huh. Well, this really sucks," Pidge deadpanned, her half-lidded eyes staring emptily at the door. The expression on her ashen features gave me the impression that she wasn't very surprised about this particular predicament. The crushing, inescapable feeling that she had begun to accept an impending death began to creep slowly over my shoulder.

No.

That wasn't going to happen.

I _refused_ to let it happen.

Pidge Gunderson was the closest thing to a sister that I had ever had in my twenty years of life, and I _refused_ to let her die. She was only seventeen. She deserved a much longer life than this. She still had a family to find, a mother to return to. She deserved so, so, _so_ much more than simply succumbing to death's final clutches on an alien spaceship.

I would let myself _slowly bleed to death from the eyeballs_ before I let Pidge Gunderson die.

I promised that much.

I looked up at the man whose fingers were entwined with mine.

Since the episode regarding Hunk in the natatorium, Lance McClain had remained eerily, uncharacteristically quiet. His eyes were still dead, the light in them having faded in the short time that the three of us had spent on the cold concrete floor, huddled together for warmth and comfort. His movements seemed to be those of a machine on autopilot; his feet carried him only where I led them, his arms hung lifelessly by his side, his gait remained robotic and unfeeling. His left palm had resorted to a natural state of being clasped tightly in my own, but his fingertips were frigid and numb against the back of my hand. He wouldn't make eye contact with me; he wouldn't even _breathe_ in my direction. I felt the cold, icy tongues of unease slithering up my body with each moment of Lance's silence.

I was unfamiliar with this side of Lance, but I knew what it meant.

Lance wasn't in mourning anymore, no.

Lance McClain was _angry_.

And not just _angry._ He was utterly and inexplicably _pissed._

I wasn't sure why, exactly, but I had a horrible feeling that I would find out soon enough.

 _He's pissed at_ _you_ _¸ Keith._ _You're_ _the one who killed Hunk._

That thought made an anxious shudder ripple down my spine. I shoved it away.

I bit my lip as I allowed my gaze to explore his face, worry clouding my conscience. I lived for the happy-go-lucky, go-with-the-flow Lance. I lived for the Lance who sung 'Despacito' a little too loudly at the dinner table. I lived for the Lance who screamed raunchy, annoying pick-up lines at me when I was trying to train. I lived for the Lance who forced me to dance to Fergie with him when we were supposed to be washing dishes, for the Lance who quietly sang our song to me and laid his head on my shoulder when the only thing I could bring myself to do was hate myself with every fiber of my being, when I was angry at the world, when I wanted nothing more than to quit leading Voltron and go back to isolating myself in my bunker. I'd do anything to see him again, to see the _real_ Lance again, for him to do something, _anything, anything at all._

"So, how are we going to do this?" Pidge asked. She sounded bored, impatient.

I squeezed Lance's hand to get his attention. "You got any ideas stored in that brain up there?"

I had to hear his voice. I had to get him to look at me. I needed him in that moment, needed him to do _something_. I couldn't stand this robotic shell of him that had taken control of his body. I couldn't tolerate it any longer. It was slowly driving me insane.

His eyes flickered to the air vent to the left of the entrance about six or seven feet above my head. After a moment, he gave a single nod at it and then returned his gaze to the door straight ahead.

Not exactly what I was hoping for, but I got the picture.

At least he had acknowledged my existence.

I looked around a little more and discovered a piece of metal pipe stashed stealthily away behind one of the columns near the door.

Lucky me.

I left the two of them alone long enough to make my way to the place where it was hidden and snatched it up, tossing it between my hands to get the feel of it.

Oh yeah. This would be perfect.

I looked back over my shoulder at Lance, who had been watching me—but he quickly whipped his head forward again when he noticed my eyes gazing at him.

My heart sank a little at this.

So, he _was_ doing that on purpose.

I sighed, then tossed the pipe to my left hand anxiously as I made my way toward him.

"Will you boost me up a sec, babe?"

He paused a moment, then nodded. He moved into position underneath the vent, squatting down and forming some type of cheerleader basket with his hands. I placed my hands on his shoulders and planted my foot firmly in the palm of his hands. "Okay, on a count of three, throw me up to the vent. Are you ready?"

His eyes narrowed in concentration. "Yeah."

"One… Two… Three!"

He let out a loud grunt as he launched me into the air. I swung the metal pipe like a baseball bat as hard as I could. The end of the pipe connected with the side of the grate with a loud, resonating _pang_ that echoed hard in my skull. I gritted my teeth to stop them from rattling together.

Luck was on my side; the impact knocked the bolt straight out of the bottom left side of the aluminum grate and loosened the remaining bolt on the top right side significantly. I allowed the beginnings of a hopeful smirk to tug at the corner of my lips. "Great, great…! Just one more time…."

He nodded and squatted down again.

This time, he launched me so high that my head nearly knocked into the ceiling.

I slammed the metal pipe into the side of the grate again. It clattered noisily to the ground, narrowly avoiding a crash into Pidge's forehead. She squeaked in surprise and nimbly leapt back, shooting an annoyed glare up at me.

Lance chuckled slightly at this. I smiled at him as my feet hit the floor, grateful for at least _some_ show of emotion.

It had seemed like centuries had passed since the last time that he'd made a noise like that.

For a moment, his eyes met mine, and the faint gleams of a smile began to shine in his eyes as the corners of his lips flickered upward slightly. But, then, the stony expression he had previously worn shattered the warm gesture to pieces, and the emptiness in his eyes returned again. I felt my chest constrict as he looked away.

It felt like I'd just been socked in the gut.

"Okay," I wheezed, ripping my eyes away from Lance. Two could play at this game. "The vent's open. Who's first?"

Pidge shrugged and waved a hand at the vent. "Go forth, almighty leader."

I nodded and looked back up at Lance. "Can I borrow you again, just one more time?"

He complied, this time kneeling down in front of me and allowing me to climb up on his shoulders. I tottered back and forth awkwardly as I attempted to gain my footing on his shoulders, grasping desperately at the air vent as soon as it was within reach. I heaved myself inside the vent, grunting as I did so.

As soon as Lance saw that I was safely inside and turned around to face him, he lifted Pidge on his shoulders next. I grabbed her wrists and helped tug her inside.

Lance was just tall enough to jump and grab the vent by himself.

It was cold inside the vent—and very, very dusty. I pulled the collar of my shirt over my nose in an attempt to avoid breathing in the debris. Goosebumps had arisen on my forearms.

The vent space was just large enough to shuffle your way through on your hands and knees if you were my height. Pidge was just barely small enough to crawl comfortably without hitting her head on the top of the vent. Lance, however, being a full foot or so taller than me, was forced to resort to an awkward, sluggish army-crawl.

After what seemed to be an eternity and a half later, we were finally able to locate the air vent over my room. I smashed my back against the cold metal wall and kicked both of my feet forward as hard as I could, forcing the grate inward and off of its hinges. The clattered to the tile floor with a loud, teeth-jarring _crash_ , just barely missing my television by inches. After a quick glance at Lance and Pidge, and small nods in confirmation from both, I launched myself down into the room, landing on one knee and wincing in pain as the joint cracked from the impact.

"Keith? Are you okay down there?" Pidge whispered at me in response to the calamity.

I looked back up into the vent to see her bright, gold-rimmed hazel eyes staring anxiously down at me. "Yeah," I grunted, forcing myself upright and rubbing my knee. It would probably be aching for a while, but currently, it wasn't anything too awful serious. "You guys go on ahead and get your bayards," I ordered to the pair of dirty, dust-streaked faces peering at me through the rectangle of darkness in the wall. "We can meet up at the main door and crawl back through the vent. If you see or hear _anything_ that is even _remotely_ suspicious, scream as loud as you can. _Be prepared for anything._ Got it?"

Both of their heads bobbed shortly in affirmation, and then they were gone.

I leaned my weight against the mattress for a moment and took a deep breath.

What in the actual _fuck_ was happening….?

It had only been four hours since that god-damned movie had ended, and we had already lost Allura, Coran, Shiro, and Hunk. _Four_ hours. _Four_ people.

.… _four_ hours… _four_ people….

A pattern…?

Maybe. There wasn't enough evidence to support that theory.

And, more importantly, there wasn't enough time to dwell on it.

The breath that I had been involuntarily holding suddenly flooded between my teeth in a frustrated _hiss._ At least that would be something to potentially discuss with Lance and Pidge later.

I sauntered around the piles of dirty clothes and the disfigured ventilation grate to the closet where my gear lay and yanked the door open.

It was time to get down to fucking business.

….

I shoved my helmet over my head and rolled my shoulders, reveling in the familiar fit of my Paladin armor. It felt so natural, so… so… _right._

I lowered my right hand to my thigh, admiring the sudden feel of my bayard in the palm of my hand as it instantaneously materialized in my hand. A small, amused smirk played on my lips, despite the circumstances. _Good. That feels better._

A sudden, low, familiar growl interrupted my train of thought.

 _I would come to your aid, if only I were able._

A smirk played its way across my chin. I knew exactly where that thought came from.

"I know, Black," I replied aloud, admiring the Black Lion's bayard in my hand. "I know."

 _I can provide nothing for you but quintessence. Perhaps that would suffice?_

"Better than nothing," I sighed lowly. "It's more than I have now."

 _Indeed._

I felt a surge of approval flood through my chest as the round tool in my hand transformed suddenly into my sword. Oh, yeah. _That_ was more like it. I whirled it in my hand a couple of times, twirling it between my fingers dexterously. There was just something about seeing that blade that made me feel invincible. I was grinning so widely that my cheeks were hurting, now.

Let that supernatural bastard come at me now. I'd chop its fuckin' head off.

I emerged from my bedroom to find Lance waiting on me, his back leaned against the wall and his legs crossed at the knee. At the sight of me, he stood upright, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to another. I noticed that his eyes had become puffy and red-rimmed again.

He had been crying.

 _Dammit._

I wished I could _do_ something.

"Lance, are… Are you getting on all right….?"

At this, he took in a deep, shaky breath. He was still being careful not to let his own eyes meet mine. Another pang of emotion jolted through my chest. "Keith, I'm fine."

"Are you sure about that? You won't even look at me. It's okay to _not_ be fine."

"Keith. I'm _fine._ " This time, he made a point to meet my gaze, his eyes glittering and hard. "I'm as fine as I can be in a situation like this. Let's just—let's just not talk about this right now, okay?" His eyes were angry, but his tone was quiet, pleading. "We can talk about it later."

At least he wasn't looking away from me anymore. And he was _talking_ to me. The bayard in his hand hadn't quite transformed fully into his blaster yet, but I still had a feeling that the mere presence of it in the palm of his hand was giving him pieces of courage and strength that I—or anyone else—would not be able to give him.

"Hey," I hesitantly stepped up to him and laid a hand on his forearm. His steely gaze was still holding my own, much to my relief. "You know I love you, right? I'm right here with you." I squeezed him slightly, then let my hand slip from his arm. "I always am. I… I don't know what's happening, or what might happen next, but I'm here for you. _I'm here for you, Lance_. You know that?"

At this, the hard, unfeeling expression in his red-rimmed eyes softened a little. His shoulders seemed to slump, as if he were ridding himself of some of the tension that clung to him. "I know," he murmured to me lowly, taking his bottom lip between his teeth. "I love you, too, Keith."

I managed a small smile at him. "We're gonna make it through this, okay, McClain?"

Without warning (and much to my delight), he gave me one of those signature crooked Lance smiles that made my heart pound a little faster than usual. "If you say so, Mullet."

What a relief it was to hear him say that.

We spent a couple more moments reveling in the comfortable silence, our eyes searching each other's. Despite the dread that seemed to have embedded itself in my stomach, those few moments seemed to spark a new ray of hope in my chest.

We could make it through this.

We were _going_ to make it through this. We had to.

Pidge came out soon after our conversation ended, her own fully-transformed bayard in her hand. The lime-green blade of her weapon glittered menacingly in the darkness. The glint in her copper eyes seemed honed to match.

At that moment, I had never been prouder of my team—or what little remained of it, anyway. The mere quintessence of our Bayards—and the strength that we found in each other—gave our hearts and souls the strength to keep fighting, even when our heads and bodies were weary. As a leader, that was enough to keep my head held high.

I would go down swinging if I had to.

And I would drag whatever that _thing_ was to hell with me, if necessary.

"Let's do this," Lance growled, stepping forward and leading us down the hall and to a separate air vent leading back to the castle's main chamber. Luckily, this vent was much, _much_ lower to the ground—therefore, no cheerleader baskets or metal pipes were involved.

The rest of the trek (or crawl, take your pick) back through the air vent passed without incident.

It quickly began to seem quite evident that with our bayards by our side and our Lions' quintessence flowing hot in our veins, we were _unstoppable_.

 _Or so we had thought, anyway._

Lance had come out of the airway and had hit the ground first, rolling slightly on the floor before standing upright to pull me through the vent. I nodded gratefully up at him and turned to take Pidge's hand to help her land on her feet—

And _that's_ when I heard it.

It was that awful, ear-piercing cackling.

Pidge's eyes grew wide with horror. "K… Keith…?!"

I sucked in a breath in alarm, but I quickly forced the panic rising in swiftly in my chest back down where it belonged.

 _No. I won't panic. I won't let_ _them_ _panic. We will fight._

"Come on, Pidge, we need to hurry—"

But then, to my total horror, a bright green light appeared suddenly in the air vent behind her.

I could see it growing closer and closer, the laughter growing louder and louder.

Pidge's eyes grew wide with horror as she clamped down on my hand with hers and began to pull herself from the vent. " _Keith…?!"_

" _Hurry, I've got you_ ," I told her, grabbing onto her wrists with both of my hands. The light in the vent was almost blinding me now. " _It's okay, I promise. Just hurry!"_

She came close to being almost fully out of the air vent—

and then, Pidge Gunderson let out a shrill, hellish shriek as something grabbed her left ankle and pulled so violently that it jerked her all the way back in the vent. The only part of her that could see in the darkness of the ventilation shaft was a pair of skinny wrists and hands that clutched desperately at my arms. Her screams echoed loudly in the vents. At this rate, I was sure that my eardrums would burst.

" _Pidge!"_ I screamed at her, bracing my weight against the wall with my foot and pulling with all my might, " _Pidge, just_ _hold on!_ _"_

 _Where the fuck is Lance….?!_

A glance over my shoulder showed him frozen in place behind me with dilated eyes and trembling hands, completely mortified by the sight unfolding before him.

" _Don't just stand there!"_ I boomed at him, snapping him out of his adrenaline-induce stupor, " _HELP me, for Christ's sake!"_

He readily leapt forward and grabbed me around the waist, pulling me backwards so hard that I heard his joints popping and cracking as he strained. Pidge was still shrieking, her head appearing and reappearing in the vent as the opposing forces heaved against each other, caught in a vicious game of tug-of-war that sent all three of us into a spiraling frenzy of life and death.

" _Pidge! Hold on just a little longer!"_

 _"_ _My hand is slipping!_ _"_

 _"No it isn't! We've got you!"_

I was in denial. No. No, no, no. I would not believe that I could lose her.

And then I felt it.

The dread in my stomach dropped like an eighty-pound bowling ball.

Her hand was starting to slip.

" _Pidge,_ _NO_ _!"_

 _"_ _KEITH_ _!"_ she screamed back at me, tears streaking down her face. Her grasp on my arms was so tight that her fingernails were drawing long, jagged, bloody scratches down the length of my forearms. I gritted my teeth and pulled harder, ignoring the pain flaring on my skin as her fingernails clawed into my flesh.

I could not lose her.

 _I_ _would_ _not lose her._

 _"_ _ **KEITH!**_ "

And, just like that, her hands slipped completely from my grasp, and her scream echoed back into my ears as her eyes grew large and desolate with shock and as she was yanked violently back down the length of the vent.

 _"_ _ **KATIE! KATIE, NO!**_ "

I desperately reached for her again. My fingers grasped nothing but emptiness.

" _ **KATIE…!**_ "

I tried to force my body back into the air vent after her. I had to save her. I had to get to her. I couldn't let another person die because of my own mistakes, because of my own inaction. I couldn't let Pidge die because of me, not after I let Hunk die so unceremoniously. My brain wouldn't be able to handle it.

" _ **Keith! Keith, no!"**_

I ignored him, instead crawling back inside of the vent.

 _Save Pidge, gotta save Pidge, can't let Pidge die—_

" _ **No, Keith! She's gone!**_ _"_

Before I could completely disappear down the vent after her, Lance's arms locked around my waist and pulled me viciously back. I allowed a loud, menacing growl tear its way up my throat as he ripped me from the vent. Tears were pouring down my face in complete rivers now.

The dam in my eyes had broken—and when it broke, it had shattered.

 _"_ _ **Let me go, Lance! I have to go!"**_

 __His arms' grip around my waist tightened in retaliation to my struggling. _ **"There's nothing you can do for her, Keith! She's gone!"**_

I fought against him with all my might, thrashing about and throwing wild punches at him that all seemed to miss. He only squeezed my waist even tighter as he dragged me farther from the ventilation shaft's entrance before he finally threw me on the ground and sat down beside me.

 _ **"Dammit, Lance, let me go!"**_

 _ **"**_ _ **KEITH. THAT'S ENOUGH**_ _ **.**_ "

I paused at this last sentence. His words snapped me out of my despairing rage.

" _ **Pidge is gone**_ _ **,**_ _Keith._ There's nothing we can do. _She's_ _ **gone.**_ "

I turned to him, speechless.

His bottom lip was trembling hard as his own tear-filled eyes silently searched my own. "She… She's gone, Keith." He suddenly threw his arms around my neck, burying his head in the crook of my shoulder. His body had begun to shake again.

Then again, I noticed, so had my own.

I let my hands drop in my lap, my eyes still locked on the darkness inside the ventilation shaft over Lance's shoulder.

Pidge's face had just been there, not twenty seconds ago.

She had been _okay,_ not _twenty seconds ago._

 _Twenty seconds._

I didn't even notice when Lance's body slumped against my own, or laid his hands on my shoulders, or when his cheek face buried itself in my chest, or when his tears rolled down the front of my armor. I didn't notice when I started screaming. I didn't notice when I finally stopped, my throat scratchy and aching and horridly raw.

Time, it seemed, had completely ceased to exist.

I didn't know if it would ever exist again.

Finally, as if on autopilot, I stood slowly to my feet and made my way to the pair of shattered turtle-shell glasses on the floor. I picked up the frames, numb to the pain that was stinging the violent scratches on my arms, and put them in my pocket as I turned back to Lance. I tried to ignore the violent, potent wave of nausea that erupted suddenly in my stomach, or the darkness that pulsed threateningly at the edges of my vision.

This was a dream.

This _had_ to be a dream.

Tears were still quietly spilling from Lance's eyes as he reached for my hand.

"Come on. We're gonna go find that thing. We're gonna get it out in the open, and then we're gonna fucking _kill it._ What do you say?"

I gazed emptily at him for a moment as my brain tried to process the words that came from his mouth. Finally, I slowly nodded at him, allowing my fingers to entwine tightly with his own.

Hand-in-hand, we made our way down the corridors in dead silence.


End file.
